The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles - Hardcover

Koch, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582432805 ISBN 13: 9781582432809

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2005

Synopsis

When Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, the new literary voices of America, traveled to Spain together during the Spanish Civil War, their relationship and rivalry reached a critical point after the murder of a close friend who was accused as a spy. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Koch is the former head of the Writing Division of Columbia University, and author of Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War Against the West, The Bachelor's Bride, Night Watch, Stargazer: The Life, World and Films of Andy Warhol, and The Modern Library Writer's Workshop. He lives in New York City.

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Breaking Point

"The Breaking Point is literary and political history that belongs alongside Homage to Catalonia and the best biographies of Hemingway and Dos Passos. It's important historical analysis of the Spanish Civil War, but made in the context of the profoundly conflicted friendship of two American literary giants." -Russell Banks, author of The Sweet Hereafter and Darling

"Stephen Koch's The Breaking Point is simply a masterpiece-a spellbinding page-turner that finally unravels the whole story behind the Hemingway-Dos Passos break. Based on a solid sense of the real history of the Spanish Civil War and the nefarious role played by Stalin, Koch has produced a major contribution to both literature and history." -Ronald Radosh, Professor Emeritus of History, CUNY, co-author of The Rosenberg File

"What a gripping literary saga! The two heavyweight American writers of the Great Depression era-Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos-feud over the horrific death of Jos Robles. Written like a mystery novel, laced with political intrigue, and with the Spanish Civil War as the backdrop, The Breaking Point is one knockout punch of a book." -Douglas Brinkley, Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization, and Distinguished Professor of History, Tulane University

Praise for Stephen Koch's Double Lives:

"A magnificent tapestry...Double Lives is the best of all possible worlds-carefully made history to be read at night." -Alan Furst, author of Dark Voyage

"Stephen Koch has written a thrilling, and what is more, fair book about one of the strangest episodes of an era." -David Remnick, author of Resurrection

Reviews

Starred Review. Koch's new biographic history surveys the Spanish Civil War, the decline of literary modernism, the train wreck otherwise known as Ernest Hemingway's love life and the waning career of John Dos Passos—all while plotting the moral highs and lows of 1930s American and European intellectuals, politicos and revolutionaries. This is heady stuff, made headier still by Koch's revelation that the hand pulling each of these narrative threads belongs to no less a villain than Joseph Stalin. Far from spinning conspiracy theories, Koch coolly examines scholarship, memoirs and archival material that place Stalin's propaganda operatives at the heart of almost every relationship, argument and scene rendered in these masterful chapters. Chief among the affairs is the unraveling friendship between Hemingway and Dos Passos, two literary titans who spent the years of the Spanish Civil War in opposing slides toward (Hemingway) and away from (Dos Passos) the ideologies of well-meaning leftists. There may be no "elevator pitch" for Koch's book, no single phrase to utter in the ear of a film producer that would take this story from page to screen, and that's too bad, because Koch (former head of the Writing Division at Columbia) reaps enough death, sex, booze and intrigue from his subject to feed an Oscar contender. But the best part is really Koch himself. Present in the narrative as a historical detective, connecting the dots between his various sources, Koch also excels as a literary critic, one who loves books that are morally nuanced and gets brilliantly angry when the authors he respects ruin their talents by committing themselves to shortsighted ideological points.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1582432805
• ISBN 13: 9781582432809
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 308